A public family squabble has emerged over control of the company that owns a majority stake in Norwegian maritime conglomerate Wilh Wilhelmsen Holding.
Several Wilhelmsen family members have hired Nordic investment bank Carnegie to advise on how to "simplify and modernise" the ownership structure of holding company Tallyman, according to several Norwegian news publications.
Cathrine Lovenskiold Wilhelmsen, who resigned from the Wilh Wilhelmsen board of directors on Friday, claimed that 60% of the shareholders in the family holding company are behind the effort, according to DN.
The family members reportedly are dissatisfied with a corporate structure that gives Wilh Wilhemsen chief executive Thomas Wilhelmsen, 45, and his father Wilhelm, 82, full voting control over Tallyman despite having a minority stake, reports Norwegian financial daily Finansavisen.
They they wield this power through a single Class A share.
The remaining family members, who are in the fourth and fifth generation of the 160-year-old Wilh Wilhelmsen Holding, control class B shares that give them no voting rights in Tallyman despite having a majority of the equity.
The Wilhelmsen family controls shares worth some NOK 3.5bn ($390m) in the Wilhelmsen group umbrella company.
Thomas Wilhelmsen defended the existing shareholding structure.
'Open to dialogue'
"We are open for dialogue about good solutions within the framework of today’s model," he told Finansavisen. "The Wilhelmsen family has in five generations managed to take the company forward and develop values for thousands of workers both in Norway and internationally”.
Wilh Wilhelmsen is a maritime industrial group with more than 2,200 employees in 74 different countries.
Together with the Swedish Wallenius Kleberg family, it controls the car carrier and logistics company Wallenius Wilhelmsen. It also owns subsidiaries Wilhelmsen Ships Service and Wilhelmsen Ship Management.
